22 Sep A Warning From a Night Mara

Posted at 11:00h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 0 Comments

📅 Published on September 22, 2020

“A Warning From a Night Mara”

Written by Ayaneve
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 11 minutes

Rating: 9.67/10. From 3 votes.

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Darkness coats nearly the entire room, a comforting blanket of emptiness in which only a small nightlight in the shape of a tacky, golden elephant pierces through the inky blackness. I stretch my long limbs languorously, clawed fingers scraping against the high ceiling as I study my surroundings. The room is dominated by a large king-size bed, two forms lying in the center. The first one is a well-built male, softly snoring and clearly deep in the throes of sleep. He doesn’t interest me. The second, though – a slender female – lies rigidly, eyes open wide and darting around the room, looking, I know, for me. She can sense me somewhere in the blackness and knows what is about to happen to her, just as she knows, after so many years, that she can do nothing to prevent it.

Closing my eyes, I feel the tremendous surge of power seeping from my fingers as an invisible flow of the paralyzing agent used for centuries by my race drifts like thick smoke towards the occupants lying in the bed. The male, of course, is immune and completely unaware of my presence, but the female, my true target, senses the danger and makes a desperate attempt to get up and flee. But it’s already too late; surely she knows this.

This is a dance that she and I have performed countless times in her short, mortal life. She is not immune, and no matter what she does to try to prevent her fate, it will always find her. I will always find her.

Her eyes widen to what must surely be a painful degree and the first, sweet blast of her terror hits me square in the chest. Watching her expressive face, I can almost feel the tingle of static energy as it seeps into her toes, up her spine, and finally comes to rest in the deepest region of her brain. She is mine now, utterly at my mercy, and she knows this. I continue watching as a dull resignation settles over her.

“Jessssicca,” I purr, “I have missed you. It’s been so, so long.” As soon as the words leave my jagged lips, Jessica’s eyes finally focus in on my vicinity, a small, breathy sound escaping from her clenched jaw. I know that she can’t quite see me yet, standing hunched in the corner of her bedroom. I take a small step closer to the dim glow of the ugly nightlight.

“I have missed you terribly…but for some strange reason, I get the impression that the feeling’s just not…mutual. You managed to shut me out so much longer this time. The pills, the therapy, all those breathing and relaxation exercises. All to treat your…condition. Sleep paralysis, I believe it is now referred to in your highly enlightened age?”

I take another small step, savoring the moment.

“Yes, I know all about your treatments. The medications and sleep studies. All those misguided attempts to keep us apart. I confess, I am a bit wounded. We’ve been together nearly your entire life, and it’s time you finally accepted that we’ll always be together. Or at least until I have wrung the very last breath from your ungrateful body. Can’t you understand? I need you too much. You keep me nourished; your horror and fear sustain me as nothing else can. Why would you deny your oldest, dearest friend what they need to survive? It’s cruel. It’s selfisssh!” I hiss, hearing the menace bleed into my tone. I pause in mid-step as a loud, sudden snort emanates from the male lying next to her.

“And this must be David. Your fiancé now, I understand? He’s a big, strapping young man, and a sleep therapist as well, right? Your sleep therapist. Sounds like he may be taking his responsibilities a bit too far, though. Surely he knows that he’s not actually supposed to sleep with his patients? Tsk, tsk. But I suppose I can understand the attraction to you. Surely such a large, capable man like him can keep you safe from the darkness, from me. Why don’t you ask him for help? Go ahead, I will wait right here.”

Her eyes, with their deep blue irises and grossly-contracted pupils, slide slowly over to the man sleeping beside her. She stares pleadingly at him as best she can without turning her head. A tiny, pathetic croak is all she can push through her stiff throat. After a moment of tense silence, her wide eyes shift back to mine once more.

“No?” I ask as I take another slow step, drawing ever closer to the bed. “See, I knew you still cared. I am always watching you, Jessica. I am in your head, your very psyche, and have consumed enough of your being to know your every weakness. Every dark thought you’ve ever whispered to the night when you thought you were alone. I was there, always listening. Remember all the good times we’ve shared together? The countless nights you’ve given so graciously of your pain, your life force?”

My mind flashes back to the first time I saw her, when she was just a young, naive child of six, maybe seven. Too young to understand the complexity of what I am, but old enough to see the wrongness, the terror of it all. Her innocence and purity were the sweetest aphrodisiacs I had ever experienced in my prolonged existence. I had come to her for the very first time then, aware that at the mercy of the paralytic agent she would be powerless against me but unprepared for the ferocity of the pleasure and strength that her fear would give me. I fed, and fed well that first night. Drawing out her anguish for the entirety of the night, relenting only when the first stray glimmers of dawn approached. I have fed off so many souls in my time but no other human satiated my hunger like she did. I have no concept of why, only knew that her essence strengthened me in a way that nothing else ever had. I admit that I became a bit obsessed with her, ignoring any other opportunities to feed, few as they were, saving my voracious appetite only for her.

I knew that I was taking too much but couldn’t seem to stop myself. I watched her grow weaker, more lifeless each time I drank from her. Most likely she would have died if she hadn’t sought out help. But finally, she did, and though the treatments had blocked me out for several months, it was inevitable that I would eventually creep back in. Nothing could keep the darkness at bay forever. Perhaps it was this obsession that caused me to feel the need to unburden myself to her, to tell her things that I had never uttered to any other human.

“It’s not your fault, really, but that of the first humans, your early ancestors…interlopers! We were the earliest of God’s creations, his beloved children. We too lived, loved and reveled in the world, free to do and live as we pleased. Whole beings that danced in the light and indulged freely in the souls of other, weaker forms the great Creator had provided for our consumption. Those creatures were not unlike the cattle and livestock that your race survives on. Yes, I once held a solid, physical form much like your own. But soon we began to crave more, need more. We soon began feasting off of each other’s fear and torment – the ultimate taboo – in order to further strengthen our own bodies. Eventually, the Creator grew… disappointed with us and our primitive and violent urges to satisfy only ourselves, regardless of the pain we inflicted on each other. He cast us out of the light, and out of this world, only to see us writhe in the black, un-whole and unworthy. And then He created you to replace us. The race of mankind became his final, desperate attempt at perfection. But He failed.”

I take several, swifter steps toward the girl, my rage getting the better of me.

“It is in that darkness that we have survived, barely able to exist off those few…humans.” He nearly spat the word, so hated as it was by those of his kind. “We subsisted on the small portion of them susceptible to our powers, those who lacked the natural blockers that would render them immune to our abilities. In the beginning, less than two percent of the entire population of your race had this…anomaly. That left mere thousands to feed many millions. Do you understand? There were far too few of you to go around and millions of us starved, and those who did went so mad with hunger that they willingly ended their miserable existences.

“First my mother, then my mate, and eventually even…my daughter…all lost throughout the countless centuries. Your god did this to us on purpose. His Holiness just couldn’t condone wiping out an entire species that He once created so lovingly. In His great benevolence, he would never bathe his white hands in blood. In creating such a tiny percentage of you with the necessary genetic predisposition, or, as your useless fiancé there would call it, the “sleep paralysis”, He gave us a chance to survive certainly, but only at the cost of nearly my whole race! The whole time He must have known that all He really did was prolong our eventual demise and cause us all eternal suffering. It was his final gift to us, and it became our greatest curse!”

I was almost to the bed now, so close that I could smell the sickly-sweet scent of her terror. I inhale deeply and smile. In her growing sense of panic, her eyes and nostrils flare, as quick, tiny puffs of air pushed past her lips. I pause, taking a moment to calm myself. It was suddenly imperative that I finish my story before I lost all control.

“Do you know how very close I was to giving up, ready to face my end, when I first laid eyes on you? You were so young, so full of hope and promise. You reminded me much of my own lost child, and for a time I even felt guilty for taking so deeply of your life force. But the strength, the euphoria it gave me, quickly overcame any misplaced empathy. Were it not for you…creatures, my family would still be alive and be first in God’s love.”

Nearly giddy now with anticipation, I quickly close the small gap between us and watch her eyes fill with terror. And I smile, feeling the bones shift and my jaw unhinge with the unnatural wideness of it. As I knew it would, the hideousness of my grin brought out a fresh wave of delicious horror that I quickly devoured.

“All of your science and enlightenment are so wasted and ignorant. You refuse to see the wisdom that those before understood for centuries. You are not diseased and therefore cannot be cured. Rather you are cursed, chosen by God to provide for my kind.”

I had to hunch down several feet, nearly kneeling in an effort to reach her ear as I whispered.

“Your ancestors knew what we are… though they soon forgot our true origins. They believed, mistakenly, that the first of our kind, Lilith, was Adam’s first wife, banished to make room for Eve. Although symbolically this was true, we, in point of fact, preceded Adam. We were the first beloved creations of God. A chosen people who enjoyed the ease and luxury of his favor. But our crimes against each other eventually became too great, too numerous for him to ignore. And so he cast out our entire race, to make room for you! You cannot know the bleak despair, the desperation that comes from being so utterly forsaken. From having everything you are and all that you love torn so irrevocably from your grasp. But…you…soon…will…”

Ever so methodically, I stalk my long, razor-sharp nails across her chest as I speak those last few words in a sing-song voice, puncturing tiny holes into her very soul and causing small streams of it to dance slowly up to my starving lips. I inhale her essence, dragging it deeply into my rotting lungs.

Suddenly, with a preternatural speed far too fast for her inferior senses to track, I straddled her slender body. Growing more ravenous at the first small taste of her aura, I rake my long nails more deeply down the length of her chest, feeling the rending of her soul as I did so. As always, I knew I that would leave no physical marks. There would be no evidence of my assault if and when she finally woke because I wasn’t cleaving her flesh, but rather, the deepest marrow of her life. I nearly cackled as the scent of her pain reached me.

“The Night Mara, they used to call us. Wretched creatures who fed off soul, breath and blood. We are the basis of every night creature of your lore. Vampires, succubi and demons. But sadly, throughout the centuries the true nature of our kind has been lost. We, who are the authors of everything your kind fears, every bump in the night and growl in the darkness, were relegated to nothing more than dreams, and the Night Mara would eventually become your nightmares.”

Lost in the ecstasy of the feeding, I savagely dig my claws into her body as deeply as they can go and then roughly twist my fingers. Jessica reacts in the only way she is able, whimpering softly through clenched teeth.

“If only you hadn’t tried so hard in your attempts to keep me from you, denied me to the brink of starvation, then perhaps…perhaps I could have satisfied myself with a small taste, just a sampling of your agony. But now I cannot control my hunger. Tonight I have no choice but to gorge myself on the banquet laid out so temptingly before me.”

Another tiny, gargled sound escapes her as numerous, tentacle-like straws slither their way out of my gray, concave chest and burrow deep into the holes that my claws had made. The tentacles instantly start contracting as they begin to greedily milk the life from her. I choke back an ecstatic moan as I feed directly from her consciousness. Looking her straight in the eye, I watch as a single, solitary tear emerges from her tightly-closed eyelids. Ever so slowly I lean down to lick at it with my long, forked tongue.

“Don’t cry, my sweet, not now. For you have yet to hear the best part of my tale. For so long we have fought among ourselves over the pitiful few of you whose spirits we were able to consume. We’ve been reduced to nothing more than wolves, savage and starving dogs fighting to the death for nothing more than miserable table scraps. But after countless millennia of watching you pathetic and weak creatures, I have come to a rather unsettling but also welcome conclusion. Humans really aren’t so different from the Night Mara, much as it pains me to say it. Both of our species are parasites, monstrous and selfish beasts who feed off the weak and sickly. With every generation that passes your kind becomes more like us and less like Him. And almost overnight it seemed there were suddenly great numbers of humans being born with this lack of immunity. It was far too steep a climb to be mere coincidence. For the first time since the dawn of your history my kind feeds, and feeds well; we have begun to prosper once again. We know the cause, even if your race is too arrogant and naïve to see it.”

Tears begin to flow more freely from her eyelids and I watch gleefully as comprehension begins to dawn on her face.

“Yes, you do understand now, don’t you? Mankind has grown nearly identical to my kind. You crush the weak, delight in your ability to destroy all goodness, and in your own way, you even feed off each other in your attempts to gain power. We have taken notice, and so has He. Your God gave you everything, all the freedoms and comforts that he once offered only to us, and you have squandered it, just as we did. But as I said before, God can’t condone the wanton destruction of those He has created. And so He has chosen to…wake you up, one soul at a time until eventually, we will reach you all, consume every last one of you. And all of this with His blessing. It would appear that even in our hideousness He prefers us to you. You’ll soon know our pain, our despair, and you will know it…quite intimately.”

It is unlikely that she will survive this night; my thirst is so great, and my will too weak. I can’t help but feel that I would be doing her a favor, a small mercy, to end it for her here and now. For if not, she would soon come to suffer the complete desolation of the forsaken, along with the rest of mankind. It seemed somehow less cruel to just put her out of her misery. But either way, it really doesn’t matter. There are now so much more of the cursed to go around, and I will easily find another susceptible to the paralysis. But as for tonight, she is my prey, and I have only just begun the feast.

My smile slowly widens…

* * * * * *

My name is David, and I am…was…engaged to a sweet, beautiful woman named Jessica. She…died last night. The doctors all say that it was a heart attack. A painless and easy passing in her sleep. And maybe, hopefully, that’s all it was.

I awoke early this morning from the darkest, most graphic nightmare of my life, to find her lying cold and stiff next to me. Her frozen fingers were stretched, resting less than a centimeter from my own hand, almost as if, in the last few seconds of her life, she had reached out to me.

Jessica had suffered from sleep paralysis nearly her entire life. That is how we met, in fact. You see, I’m a sleep therapist, and she had the most debilitating case of the disease that I had ever seen. Over the many hours we spent together, I couldn’t help but fall in love with her. And she was getting better. It had been several months, in fact, since she’d had an episode.

But last night…the nightmare I had…well, I was the demon in the story. I saw and felt everything from his point of view, and just as he predicted, Jessica did die. And the preceding story has been an exact account of the dream that I had that night.

Now, I have always been a man of science. I don’t believe in the paranormal or demons, and I certainly don’t believe that our nightmares can hurt us. Or at least I didn’t. But this… This…creature, or whatever he is, was right about one more thing, and it haunts me most of all.

In the past five years, the reported incidents and severity of sleep paralysis have nearly tripled, and medical science has no real explanation as to why.

What if everything that happened last night wasn’t just a dream…but a warning?